A Moment in Crowdsourcing History: 1887

While doing some well-deserved offline exploring in the historic district of Savannah, GA last week, I came across this sign. My initial interest was in its obvious historical significance, but I soon noticed this little known fact:

“The Exchange was designed by the nationally-known Boston architect, William Gibbons Preston (1844-1910). His design won out in a competition participated in by eleven architects.”

That’s right. Turn of the century crowdsourcing. Almost 120 years before Jeff Howe coined the phrase, the city of Savannah was successfully practicing it. With no internet or global presence as well as very limited communications, they assembled a crowd (of 11), ran a competition and selected the best participant to architect the center of economic activity for the 2nd largest cotton seaport in the world.

Now, with all of this incredible technology and global talent at your fingertips, imagine what you can do with crowdsourcing.